


adult

by yuletide_archivist



Category: History Boys - Bennett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-02
Updated: 2007-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:13:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1623704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dakin/Scripps at university.</p>
            </blockquote>





	adult

**Author's Note:**

> Written for templemarker

 

 

It's only after his first few tutorials that he starts to realise what he's got himself into. Outside, Oxford looks the same - sunlit, crowded, serene, and he feels the same surging triumph as ever as he walks down secret, cobbled lanes no tourist could find, every inch the student. But the tutorial - he's never felt like that at school, ever, shaken and underprepared and utterly mediocre. _Facile_ , Professor Patterson had said, _superficial_ , and Dakin had felt himself go painfully red, as if it mattered.

He wants to smash things, he thinks, and runs, just then, into a boy - blond and posh and scared-looking, an obvious first-year, who's got his bike tangled up in Dakin's legs and is going crimson with apology about it. _Very_ posh, with a heavy expensive coat and college scarf and cut-glass lips, and Dakin almost wouldn't be surprised if he came out with a _frightfully sorry, old chap_ , given that accent. He doesn't, though, and when Dakin stops him apologising and smiles at him, he blushes very prettily. Licks his lips, unconscious, nervous, and smiles shyly back and, for Dakin, it's like filling his own skin out again, feeling tall and brilliant and dangerous and invincible.

 _Yeah_ , he thinks and smiles wider, makes it as knowing as he knows how. The boy's at Univ and his name is Henry or Harry or Herbert or something, and his room is tiny and boring and ridiculously neat - he hasn't even unpacked - but it's as good a place as any for a blow job. He's fumbling and cautious, posh Henry, but obviously not inexperienced - all those stories about public schools are true then - and the bells are chiming when Dakin comes, he can see his college spires out the window, and it makes him laugh out loud. Scripps laughs at him, with him, when he tells the story, the usual hints of shock and admiration in his eyes, and he feels warm and triumphant, like he's exactly where he should be in this warm, smoky pub with Scripps at his elbow.

Scripps is a First of course, shining with it, dizzy with lectures and learning and always on about some book or the other he's read or some joke his tutor's made. They love him, of course, though he ducks his head and won't tell Dakin his marks. He spends half his time stumbling into secondhand bookshops or record stores and the other half in church, joins all the obscurest societies, and develops a clique of bizarre friends, earnest Christian girls with appalling hair and gloomy-looking Marxist boys. Even his accent's starting to mutate, taking on a hint of the Oxford drawl. He only laughs when Dakin mentions it, though, and he still meets Dakin every weekend, punctual as clockwork, for drinks. Never has stories of his own. Same old Scripps.

That's how first year goes. Second year, and Dakin's starting to worry about Finals. He can pull a First now, if he works for it, but he has to _work_ \- it's a grinding, impossible strain and he ends up fucking his awkward, sarcastic tute partner just to get his mind off it. Scripps is horrified, of course, says he could muck everything up, but John's a strangely placid Northern bloke and he seems perfectly content with one fuck and never mentioning it again. He's also not all that brilliant, it turns out, he works just as hard as Dakin does and for slightly worse marks. It's only Scripps who just seems to dream his way into the best marks, into an Exhibition and then a Scholarship, and Dakin watches his hands as he talks, the wide uncalculated curve of his smile, and feels a certain jitter under his skin. Scripps, though. It's only Scripps. Who is, in any case, still saving it all for Jesus.

"What?" Scripps says, just as Dakin thinks that, and Dakin shakes his head _nothing_ , orders another pint to hide his grin. It's in his head though, now, the thought. Scripps has very pink lips, surprisingly long pale eyelashes, snub nose, smiles thoughtfully with half of his mouth sometimes and other times cracks up into a huge grin that makes him look twelve. Freckles across the bridge of his nose. Scripps has never done anything, ever, and Dakin wonders suddenly whether the boy still doesn't wank even off. He nudges him with an elbow, waits for a lull in the noise of the pub, and then asks, in as clear a voice as he can. Scripps chokes on his pint and goes a bit red and smacks him, all the desired effects, but he doesn't actually answer the question.

"Really," Dakin says, "I want to know," and his hand drops onto Scripps's thigh almost without his volition. Scripps stares at it for a long moment, going utterly still, Dakin's pulse pounding suddenly in his throat, and then he lifts Dakin's hand off his thigh by the wrist, stands up.

"I think you've had enough," he says, and he doesn't look angry but he doesn't look encouraging either. "Come on, I'll walk you home," and he does, supporting Dakin a bit, and never mentions it again.

Dakin still thinks of it, though, again and again, and he wonders if he might be going a bit mad. He's never, _ever_ wanted anyone he couldn't have. The nearest thing he remembers to this is the way he'd felt about Irwin before interviews, wanting to be him and have him and everything in between, and not knowing if he even he could win at that. He had though, though, he remembered, the terrified flush on Irwin's face a surge of power that had carried him all the way here. Irwin had wanted to suck him off. Would have, if - if things had turned out differently. But one fucking thing happens after the other and now he looks at Scripps's mouth and doesn't want him on his knees. Just wants to touch him. _Please_ , he thinks once, wanking, and the thought startles him into stopping, a shock of heat that feels something like fear going through him. _Please_ , he thinks again, doesn't know if he wants to hear it from Scripps or to be the one saying - _oh, fuck, please_ and he comes.

He doesn't meet Scripps for drinks the next weekend, or the weekend after. Then he tells himself that he's not fucking Posner, for God's sake, to be pining from afar. Scripps, the idiot, is waiting for him at the pub just as usual and Dakin wants to laugh at him for being such a doormat but he's smiling too much. It makes Scripps startle a little, looking up from his book, and when Dakin ducks closer to breathe in his ear, he drops it.

"Come back to mine?" Dakin whispers and Scripps's knuckles are white on the table. "Please," he adds, and Scripps just blinks at him, like he's never seen him before. _I want to suck you off_ , he thinks feverishly, but he only kisses Scripps, against the wall of his own room in college, and even that quick brush of lips makes him shake with something like panic. Scripps just stares at him, eyes dark and wide, and Dakin's a thought away from apologising when Scripps makes a sound like a sigh, puts his hand on the nape of his neck.

"Dakin," he says, and he sounds resigned and affectionate as always, studying Dakin like always. "I don't know what you're doing."

Dakin squeezes his eyes shut. His pulse is pounding so hard it hurts. "Nor do I," he admits, and it feels like getting on his knees, like giving it all up. He doesn't know if he can bear it and he can still feel Scripps just watching him and then he feels the drift of Scripps's fingers over his mouth. His eyes snap open and Scripps looks shaken, a little afraid, his face flushed.

"I don't -" he says, exhales hard. "What do you want?"

He makes a strained noise when Dakin kisses him, properly this time, he shivers and gets so hard so fast it's almost funny, and Dakin, sliding his hand between his legs to cup him and watching him shudder helplessly, reaches for that fierce feeling of triumph and feels nothing but an enormous, unfamiliar weakness, expanding almost painfully in his chest. He's got Scripps in his hands, clutching at him, and it could be any fucking city in the world, he could be anywhere, he's flying and shaking and scared half out of his mind. Scripps moans and bites his lip, and Dakin kisses his jaw and grinds against him and watches him come. Scripps looks bewildered afterwards, like he's forgotten his own name, and Dakin would laugh at him but he feels the same way, ignorant and clumsy. He's come in his trousers, he realises slowly. He has no idea what he's doing, and Scripps can see it. And he doesn't, for the first time in his life, he doesn't care.

 


End file.
